


trying to catch the devil's herd across these endless skies

by thewalrus_said



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Spoilers through 162
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25074871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewalrus_said/pseuds/thewalrus_said
Summary: Martin, in the cabin, waiting for Jon.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	trying to catch the devil's herd across these endless skies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Louise_Tjadina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louise_Tjadina/gifts).



> For Louise_Tjadina! They requested angst, the heavier the better, with a happy ending. I did my best!

Jon shoves a sheaf of papers in Martin’s hand and sinks into a chair at the kitchen table, trembling like a leaf. Martin skims the sheets, just enough to take in the gist, and then goes back to the beginning and reads carefully. Somebody should know what happened to Jon, and judging by the state of him, it’s bad.  _ Very _ bad.

By the time he’s done, Jon has gone wide-eyed and catatonic, fingers clenched in his hair, staring vacantly at the wood grain of the table. Martin goes to put the statement in the fire and then crouches at his side. “Jon?” he says gently, putting a hand on the man’s arm. “Jon, are you still with me?”

It takes a while, long seconds passing until it’s closer to a minute, but eventually Jon scrunches his eyes closed and says, “Barely. But yes.”

“Can you tell me what it’s like for you?” Martin asks. “I need to know what I’m working with.”

“It’s just... It’s just  _ hell,” _ Jon rasps, head drooping further. “Everyone’s suffering, all over the world, and I can  _ see it all, _ I can  _ feel _ it all.”

“Okay.” Martin squeezes his arm. “Okay. So we need to get you somewhere you can’t see. A room without windows, would that help?”

“It’s not that kind of seeing,” Jon says. “But, I don’t know. Maybe.”

It turns out there isn’t a room without windows, not in the whole cabin, but the bedroom only has one small one, and Daisy, bless her, hung blackout curtains. Martin settles Jon into the chintzy armchair (and he’s going to have to ask Daisy about that when they see her again, it is  _ so _ not her taste) and wraps a blanket around his shoulders. “How’s that?” he asks, running a hand over Jon’s shoulder. “Is that any better?”

“A little,” Jon admits. He rubs his face. “What did you do with  _ his _ statement?”

“I burnt it,” Martin says firmly. “No more than he deserved.” He drops to his knees. “Jon, this wasn’t your fault.” Jon laughs, hollow and horrible. “It  _ wasn’t,” _ Martin insists. “It was all Elias.”

Jon sighs. “I don’t want to argue about this right now, Martin.”

Martin rubs his knee. “Okay. But I’m fully prepared to argue about it later. What can I do for you now? Some tea, maybe?”

“We’re out of tea,” Jon says.

“Oh yeah.”

John sighs again. “Maybe some privacy? It’s not that I don’t want to be around you, I just... I don’t want to be  _ seen _ right now.”

“Alright,” Martin says, trying hard not to be stung. “Alright.” He stands. “Just shout if you need anything, alright?”

“I will.” Jon gives him a weak smile. Martin passes a hand down his cheek and leaves the room.

In the absence of anything else to do, Martin fixes himself something to eat. They’d gone out for supplies just the day before, so there’s plenty to pile on a sandwich, and crisps to eat with it. It all tastes like ash in Martin’s mouth, but he swallows every bite down. He has the sense he’s going to need his strength.

He tidies up after himself, washes and dries the plate and knife, wipes down the table, and then he has nothing to hold him back anymore. Casting a look at the door to the bedroom, Martin creeps over to the front door and cracks it open. He can see out the kitchen window, he knows what the world looked like now, but he wants to stand in it, see how survivable it is. He takes a step out.

It isn’t Scotland anymore, that much is certain. The day before, their cabin had been surrounded by green fields, dirt paths, trees, cows... Now it’s just red, bare rock, not a scrap of vegetation in sight, and above him the great all-seeing eye. Martin does a lap around the house, just to check, and goes back inside.

The door to the bedroom is open, Jon’s face hovering like a ghost in the crack. “I wouldn’t do that again,” he says. “Not sure it’s safe, even briefly.”

“Alright,” Martin says. Jon shuts the door again, leaving Martin standing alone in the kitchen.

There doesn’t seem to be a sun anymore, Martin notices after a while, just the light coming down from the eye in the sky, and it doesn’t change at all with the passage of time. He does his best to estimate, and when he thinks it must be about night-time he casts a wary eye at the couch. Too small, he judges; he’s tall, and the couch is short. No telling  _ what _ it’d do to his back if he tried to kip on it.

He goes to the bedroom door, knocks, and cracks it open. “Jon?”

“Come in,” is the quiet reply.

He steps inside. Jon is jackknifed back into the chair, staring at the floor. “I was just gonna try and get some sleep,” Martin says. “Do you mind if I use the bed?”

Jon chuckles, some unknown joke he doesn’t bother explaining. “Go ahead, if you can.”

“Ominous,” Martin mutters, padding over to the bed.

He wakes what felt like bare minutes later drenched in sweat, heart pounding and breath coming as though he’d been running for hours. Jon is perched on the end of the bed staring at him; his hand is in Martin’s. “I wouldn’t do that again,” he repeats softly.

“No joke,” Martin says shakily, sitting up. His throat feels raw. “Was I... Was I screaming?”

“Not out loud,” Jon says. Martin decides he doesn’t want to know what that means.

More time passes. Jon stays holed up in the bedroom; Martin can hear him pacing sometimes, muttering to himself. One time he hears weeping, but when he goes inside Jon’s eyes are dry.

It’s not  _ fair. _ Martin waited  _ so long _ for Jon, loved him in silence for  _ literal years, _ and then as soon as he finally  _ gets _ Jon, as soon as he and Jon can be in the same place, on the same page, in a real relationship, Elias steals that away from them too. And once again Jon is going through something Martin can’t even fathom, and Martin can’t even empathize. All he can give is sympathy, and love; both things Jon clearly has no use for anymore. Just like he clearly has no use for  _ Martin _ anymore.

That’s not fair, Martin tells himself. He pops his head in every now and again, just to check on Jon, and Jon always responds, always meets his eye and gives him the courtesy of an honest answer. He clearly still loves Martin, in whatever way he’s still capable of, and Martin knows he should be grateful. But he’s  _ not. _ It’s not enough. He had three weeks with Jon, the  _ real _ Jon, and he’s starting to get the idea that they’ll never ever have that kind of peace again.

Martin takes to cleaning the house, scrubbing from top to bottom until everything gleams. He finds a box of tea in the cupboard and gratefully brews a cup, bringing it in to Jon.

It doesn’t go well.

“You  _ know _ I’m here for you,” Martin says, less of a question and more of an insistence.

“Yes,” Jon breaths, thank  _ God, _ and lets Martin draw him in.

Back before...  _ before, _ Martin had always thought of Jon as fragile. Thin limbs, narrow joints, deep bags under his eyes. He’s still thin, still narrow, but as Martin hugs him, he doesn’t  _ feel  _ fragile. He feels like he’s made of steel, hard and unyielding under Martin’s big soft hands. But he nuzzles into Martin’s chest, the fingers of one hand fisting into his sweater like he’s still breakable. Martin kisses the top of his head and holds him for as long as Jon lets him.

Eventually Jon straightens reluctantly, and Martin takes his cue to leave. He fixes himself something to eat out of habit more than hunger and goes to sit by the fire, staring into it and trying not to think about what Jon meant by, “It feels  _ right.” _

One day (well, one stretch-of-time-that-sort-of-feels-like-a-day), Martin’s poking around the cabin’s cramped second floor when he finds a door he’s never seen before. It’s hard to look at, blurring every time he looks away and making him squint when he faces full-on, but it’s there. Martin considers getting Jon for a brief moment, and then reaches out and turns the handle.

Oh,  _ bless Daisy. _ It’s an attic, stuffed full to bursting with survival gear. There’s MREs and water packs and more rope than he could shake a stick at, Swiss army knives and hand axes and hiking boots, tinder boxes and fishing gear and so much more, and hanging on the back wall are two rucksacks, massive and bristling with pockets.

Martin takes (what feels like) at least four hours to go through everything and pack the rucksacks until their seams groan, enough food for two months and the rest of the space shoved full of gear. The hiking boots are much too small for him, but he thinks they might fit Jon, so he sets a pair aside.

He hauls them both downstairs and stashes them under the kitchen sink, and then goes to see if he can still see the door to the attic. He can, although it’s just as difficult.  _ Good. _ He might need to get back in later.

When he comes down the stairs again, he finds Jon standing at the kitchen table, hands clenched onto the box that’s still sitting there, eyes vacant as he stares out the kitchen window. “Jon?” Martin comes closer and puts a hand on his arm. Jon startles back into awareness and looks at him. “You okay?”

“I wanted this, and I didn’t know where you were,” Jon says, his face a little plaintive.

“I was in the attic,” Martin tells him. “Are you sure you want that?” he goes on, gesturing to the box. “I doubt there’s anything good in there.”

Jon nods, looking back at it. “You haven’t been through it?” Martin shakes his head. He’s thought about it, but every time he got close to opening the lid, the thought of Elias— of  _ Jonah _ filled him with enough disgust that he turned away. “I want to know what else he’s sent us.”

Martin sighs. “Do you need help carrying it?”

Jon gives him a smile, a rare one, and it almost stops Martin’s heart. “I’ve got it. But if you could get the door, that would be helpful.” Martin hops to, holding the door to the bedroom open for Jon. “Thank you,” Jon says solemnly and passes back into his sanctuary.

“Shout if you need me,” Martin says, the way he does every time he leaves Jon alone in here.

“I will,” Jon says, and it has the weight of a promise. Martin lets him be. A few minutes later, he can hear the tinny sounds of someone’s voice coming out of a tape recorder.

The voices keep coming, the tape recorder playing and playing and playing, and when Martin goes in during the brief periods of silence, Jon seems to be shrinking, the bags under his eyes getting deeper, his hair getting lanker, his clothes getting looser. “You should get some sleep,” Martin says, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t think I do anymore,” Jon says, half a laugh in his voice. “Sleep. How long’s it been now?” Martin doesn’t have an answer; of course he doesn’t, Jon’s always been the one with answers. “Probably for the best,” he says. “Sleep doesn’t look... pleasant.”

“It isn’t,” Martin says, and that’s right, how could he have forgotten that? It hadn’t been that long ago, in the grand scheme of things. He shakes himself and turns his attention back to Jon. “Just as well I don’t remember my dreams.”

“I do,” Jon says ominously, and Martin gives up.

Jon plays the Gertrude tape for him, and Martin listens in helpless silence, unable to so much as cough over the sound of her voice. Jon snaps at him afterwards, the first show of any emotion other than grief in a long time, and Martin’s almost grateful under the sting. “I love you, I just... I need more time,” Jon says, sat on the floor of the bedroom, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, clinging to Martin’s hand like a lifeline.

“It’s alright,” Martin says, stifling a sigh and mustering a smile. “I’m good at waiting.”  _ I waited years for you, _ he doesn’t say.

Jon hears it anyway. “Thank you,” he replies, meaning both.

Back outside the bedroom, Martin takes the rucksacks back up to the attic and pulls all the food out, refilling them with more rope and other supplies. He shoves a spare pair of hiking boots into the newly-emptied space of one of them and hauls them downstairs again.

There’s something  _ different _ about the house after that, something weighty and pressing that stands between Martin’s shoulders whenever he stops moving. He forgets things; once, as the sound of the tape recorder starts up again in the bedroom, he realizes with a start that he’s forgotten Tim and Sasha, forgotten everyone but him and Jon and this house. He finds himself sat on the couch, staring at the fire, which he hasn’t had to feed or stoke since he set it to burn Jonah’s statement all those— all that time ago. It’s harder to leave Jon alone in the bedroom, but Martin forces himself; Jon needs time, and Martin’s good at waiting.

Martin’s staring at the fire again, lost in the rippling of flames, when something startles him out of his trance. A few seconds of concentrated listening reveal that it’s Jon, speaking aloud in the bedroom. “Jon?” Martin tries to call out, but he can’t speak, can’t make a sound, can only listen. He can’t make out the words Jon is saying through the thick door and walls but the sound of his voice is comforting, authoritative and rich.

Finally it ends, and Martin gets off the couch and goes to the bedroom. “Jon?” he calls, opening the door. “I thought I heard... Are you okay?”

Jon  _ is _ okay, Martin finds, more okay than he’s been in ages; there’s life in his face where there once was only sadness, a brightness to his eyes and a lightness to his limbs as he moves to touch Martin and explain. “It all poured out of me, into the tape,” Jon says, looking down at the little recorder, “and it felt  _ right.” _

“So you’re recording again?” Martin tries, at a loss for anything else to say.

“I might need to. If we’re going to make it.”

Martin’s heart leaps in his chest, little tendrils of hope spreading through his veins like vines. “Back to the Archives?”

“It seems the best place to start,” Jon says, looking up into Martin’s eyes, and Martin can feel his face split into a smile.

Jon keeps talking, starting a spiel about  _ difficulty _ and  _ danger, _ but Martin for once isn’t listening. He takes Jon by the hand and tows him out of the bedroom, making for the cabinet under the kitchen sink, explaining over Jon’s words about the rope in the attic and shoving the bag meant for Jon into the man’s hands. Jon finally cuts him off with a hand over his mouth, his eyes crinkling with love and gentleness. Martin kisses Jon’s palm and he removes his hand. “We’ve  _ got _ this,” Martin insists, putting his hands on Jon’s shoulders.

Jon laughs, and his whole face lights up when he does. “Apparently so.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://thewalrus-said.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](http://twitter.com/thewalrus_said)!


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